Mark Warburton made five changes for the second game in a row, as he looks to get his Nottingham Forest side back to winning ways at Sunderland.

Barrie McKay dropped to the substitute’s bench for the first time in the Championship since his summer arrival from Rangers, despite having an impact in Ben Osborn’s leveller against Sheffield Wednesday in Saturday's 3-1 reverse.

McKay, along with Zach Clough and Jason Cummings were three of the players dropped from the starting XI that were beaten on Saturday, though Ben Brereton kept his place.

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Armand Traore and Matt Mills were both restored to the team at the expense of Jack Hobbs and Danny Fox, with the latter both playing 90 minutes at the weekend.

There was no Jack Hobbs in the squad at Sunderland (Image: Dan Westwell)

Joe Worrall and Tendayi Darikwa retained their places as the Reds boss looked to shuffle his defensive pack in a bid to aid Forest’s defensive fragilities, having conceded 11 in the opening six games of the league season.

Irish international and former Sunderland man Daryl Murphy, along with Everton loan star Kieran Dowell, were restored to the starting XI having come off the bench at Hillsborough just seconds after the Owls had bagged their second through Steven Fletcher.

Simon Grayson’s Black Cats haven’t won at the Stadium of Light since a success over Watford in December, and Warburton will be hoping to add more pressure onto the Weirsiders, who have struggled to adjust to life in the second tier.

Daryl Murphy was back in the Forest side (Image: Dan Westwell)

After coming on in the first half to replace Clough, Andreas Bouchalakis regained his place in the middle of the park, while David Vaughan, Matty Cash, Jamie Ward and Chris Cohen remained sidelined through injury, while Jack Hobbs was left out of the squad altogether, along with Apostolos Vellios and Michael Morrison